travel > Destinations > europe > Austria > Goat Church

Goat Church

TIME : 2016/2/18 16:09:01

Dominating the southern side of the main square, this mostly Gothic church gets its unusual name from the legend that the church has been built thanks to the treasure unearthed by a goat (hence the stone goat being cuddled by an angel on a pillar). Originally built in the late 13th century, the church has a mostly baroque interior with a splendid red-marble pulpit in the centre of the south aisle, which dates from the 15th century. Better yet is the church’s Chapter Hall , located off the main nave. Part of a 14th-century Benedictine monastery, it has fading frescoes and grotesque stone carvings – mainly animals with human heads – representing the deadly sins of humankind.

Directly in front of the chutch is the tall, corkscrew-like 1701 Trinity Column , among the finest examples of a ‘plague pillar’ in Hungary, paid for by two Sopron residents to celebrate the end of the plague at the end of the 17th century.